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Biz Dev Real Talk with Anne Milan Alo
162 Plays10 months ago
Prepare to be enlightened in this must-listen episode featuring the insightful Anne Milan Alo, a luminary in the world of marketing and business development. Anne, with her extensive experience, delves deep into the art of attracting clients. She opens up about the dos and don'ts for agencies seeking to catch her eye, offering an invaluable perspective from the client's side. Discover Anne's preferred communication strategies, from crafting compelling emails to engaging LinkedIn messages, and learn why paid advertising might not be the golden ticket to acquiring clients like her. With years of expertise in marketing across agencies and brands, Anne's advice is not just theory, but a proven blueprint for business development success. Tune in to gain actionable strategies and insights from a seasoned marketing maven.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Crossing the Axis'
00:00:05
Speaker
You're listening to Crossing the Axis, the podcast that explores the commercial side of film production with your host, James Kebles.
00:00:24
Speaker
Welcome listeners and thank you for tuning into the show.
Business Development and Account Management
00:00:28
Speaker
This episode continues the series of client side conversations where we learn about business development and account management directly from the people we might actually like to work with. I love these conversations because they often demystify the sales process from one that's about persuasion and moves us closer to how we find a fit between a client's needs and an agency's service offering. These conversations produce the best results for listeners when the person I'm talking to
00:00:54
Speaker
has walked the mile in your shoes and wants you and your agency to succeed as much as they do in the client role.
Meet Anne Milan-Alo, Brand Executive
00:01:00
Speaker
That's why I'm thrilled to have Anne Milan-Alo be part of today's show. Before Anne became the powerhouse brand executive she is today, she started in the Pacific Northwest in the early 2000s. No, not as part of a grunge band, although that would have been cool.
00:01:15
Speaker
but by making waves as a graphic designer and a stylish brand marketer. Fast forward, she's played pivotal roles at company giants like We Communications and Netflix. Oh, and if you have ever been gushing about the hit show, The Queen's Gambit, you have Anne and her creative team to thank for that. Yes, she's the type of person that can make chess look glamorous.
00:01:36
Speaker
Now in ECD at Sirius XM, Anne's dialing up the volume and ensuring the brand remains note perfect, juggling roles and showcasing her dexterity and as a balanced blend of left and right brain. Plus, she's got the chutzpah in wisdom we all need a little dash of in our lives. So without further ado, Anne, Milan, Alo, welcome to the show.
Anne's Career Journey and Brand Experience
00:01:58
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. That was a great intro. Is there anything I missed? No, I think that was a nice wrap up.
00:02:05
Speaker
I may just copy that. I might copy and paste your intro. Well, it was really fun researching you and I wanted it to be spontaneous. I know you, of course, but I wanted to just kind of just do this on my own. And so I get to go into your history and all this stuff and you write about yourself in such great ways. I almost just borrowed your own writing. That's really good. And I should probably make it my own.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to sound, be taken seriously as sort of an entrepreneur and business minded sort of cause strategy goes hand in hand with creativity for sure and the commercial space at least. And so it's hard to strike the right balance of like taking me seriously, but I'm also a lot of fun to work with.
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, and I, I made the joke about you being in a band, but maybe you were actually, I didn't know that. You know what the fun fact is, is that I have tried every angle to see if it was a hidden talent of mine. And actually when I was still living in Seattle, I took voice lessons as an adult and my voice teacher gave me the hard talk of like.
00:03:03
Speaker
This is a fun exercise for you, but I don't think it's in there. Because I have envy really talented musicians who either play an instrument or
00:03:16
Speaker
can sing. You'll actually in my office here I do I have a really dope ukulele, I have a guitar, I have three notes that I can do really well. Three chords, they even named them wrong. I only have three chords that I'm practicing on. And a lot of it is like I have a personal style that sometimes I really want to have like long nails, really cool fun ratchet nails, which stops me from practicing. And then when I do have short nails,
00:03:42
Speaker
I forget to practice. So that's my permit to my musical career. Well, maybe we should do karaoke sometime just to test those vocal chops. Oh my God. So that's as far as I'm going. I guess karaoke is as far as my musical career goes. Well, I'm really excited to have you here and I probably should be honest. I do have a hidden agenda. I really want to figure out if I got you on, how do I get this podcast onto Sirius XM? Nice. Hidden agenda's out.
00:04:12
Speaker
I love it. I love it. I don't know. I'm sure it's maybe not that difficult, but I can ask if no one's ever asked me that question, but yeah. Well, I have known you for a long time, but we haven't caught up in a long time. So I want to real quick catch me up. Give me a behind the scenes take on what you're up to these days. What's cooking in your world on and off the clock?
Role and Responsibilities at Sirius XM
00:04:32
Speaker
Uh, okay. So let's start with like on the clock.
00:04:35
Speaker
is I lead the creative practice across Xerox XM. We take on both the Xerox XM brand and brand of content types. So any radio channel that you probably love with is something that my team has taken on as far as launching it or actually maintaining it or refreshing it. Cause we have some content that's been around for over 10 years. And then we also take care of the brand. So Xerox XM as a brand is actually going through an evolution right now. We are using both our history and sort of our
00:05:04
Speaker
look ahead into the future on what does CR6M mean to both our loyal customers who've been with us for generations and then those that are maybe just discovering ourselves for the first time. It's sort of a multi-generational brand approach, which I think is a really fun challenge to take on. That's sort of the things that we're working through right now. The public will probably see it more later this
Inside Creative Labs at Sirius XM
00:05:28
Speaker
year.
00:05:28
Speaker
And outside of sort of the brand, we also take care of the Pandora brand, which I know many people maybe have a fond memory of Pandora and don't engage with it now today. So it's been fun to work with two legacy brands that have distinct histories and then they have great potential in the future. So working through that. The team I lead is a fantastic team of talented folks. So we are called internally as Creative Labs.
00:05:56
Speaker
So we've recently rebranded when I joined about two years ago to sort of articulate ourselves not as a creative services team, but as a creative labs where we both use our entrepreneurial and strategic know-how with our craft. So that could be sound design, motion graphics. They could be photo, video, creative directors who sort of think about the campaigns in a 360 view. So we have writers. We have a really fantastic creative operations team to keep us together. So I lead.
00:06:25
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uh, quite a big operation that I'm really proud of. And you're down in LA now, right? I'm down
Anne's Personal Interests and Improv Classes
00:06:30
Speaker
in LA. So that's my off hours. I guess my off hours is I enjoy the 72 and sunny here in LA. I just, I love living out here. I also take improv class, um, to keep my left and right brain going. And so I say left and right cause it's, it's crazy, but it's really like, it's a sport. So I do think you have to,
00:06:50
Speaker
sort of let go of the cerebral nature of your brain. But you also have to be mindful of what you're saying out loud. That's, that's sort of me in a nutshell. Are you doing this at UCB? Yeah, I am. Oh, that's great. That's a dream of mine. Actually, that's a little bit of a bucket list is to take some input. Yeah. Yeah. I have a deep admiration for that. I didn't even know that about you, but it completely adds up to that. You'd be doing that and how I know you from the past. So this is great. Yeah. It's actually, it's not down the street, but it's like a five minute drive from here.
00:07:19
Speaker
And so I took that up on my 40th birthday, actually. That's why I spent my birthdays with strangers on my day one of improv 101 at UCB.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's such a good skill. I have my kids taking classes in improv comedy and theater and stuff like that. Not that I'd say that they have to grow up to do that as a living, but it's such a great skill for leading teams and pulling out ideas and getting over blocks and all of those types of things. It's really, it's just a good human skill. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. So I'm enjoying it.
Collaboration with Agencies on High-Production Projects
00:07:51
Speaker
So as you're doing all of this innovation work in this labs, are you working with many agencies and the vendors? Are you bringing outside folks? We do have quite a big team internally.
00:08:04
Speaker
We're about like 75 strong. And we have a blend of agencies that we work with depending on sort of what our needs are. On one sort of like area, which is the sort of studio production team. When we have to do sort of high production things, I'll use an example. Let's say a live concert that is streamed or captured for long form per post to experience in the app, or maybe there are cut downs used for paid marketing. Oftentimes we use our internal team in tandem with an agency.
00:08:33
Speaker
sort of as an extension because it could be a big production. So last year, or maybe two years ago now, it's all blending. We did Super Bowl with John Mayer and we did it as a full live concert. And while our guests come and experience a really fun and engaging concert, we actually also do sort of behind the scenes interviews, one-liners that we do earlier in the day in a studio that we capture with John Mayer. So the post-production of that becomes
00:08:59
Speaker
The interview that's highly stylized is the interstitials to the concert that we play post. So you sort of get to know the artist in an intimate way, and then you also sort of get to zoom out and then see the live experience of the recording of the concert. That's sort of one agency type that we work with.
Preference for Boutique Agencies
00:09:17
Speaker
How many agencies do you think that you work with in a given month outside agencies that either support you in creative development or the technical stuff? I mean, right now there's about three to four that we work with in different ways. How are these agencies that are folks that you inherited when you took on the role? Is it folks that you've brought on? Is it folks that's brand new to the entire thing and you met them through some kind of outreach that they did?
00:09:46
Speaker
Most of the agencies, right, so three out of the four are agencies that inherited.
00:09:51
Speaker
One is a fairly new one, and it was recently onboarded by a new boss that I have. So it's sort of a blend of both. Do you have an agency type that you like to work with? You know, I worked in agencies myself, so like I, yes, have a strong feeling what kind of agency type I prefer. I always prefer a boutique agency over a large agency, even though sometimes it's really hard to sort of get through the paperwork
00:10:18
Speaker
and the buy-in because of the sort of just nature of, I guess, in my view, it's sort of an unsaid liability. To take a smaller agency. To take a smaller agency, because let's just say like, if you've always heard Ogilvy as an example, like if you've always heard Ogilvy, then there's a common understanding that they've been around for a while.
00:10:41
Speaker
they're a big agency, there's an assumption they can do more and their risk is less. And so sometimes in sort of a corporate setting, there's a level of comfort there that those sort of larger agencies have upper hand in. And then when you want to introduce like, I don't want to name any agencies, what I just say like Agency Rubik's Cube, then there's a lot of energy that comes from, in my view, those type of, I don't want to call it like the energy comes from the size, but I do think it's oftentimes a founder
00:11:10
Speaker
who has big ideas that maybe never really went beyond a pitch. And so to me, there's a lot more sort of like energy and newness from a boutique agency and also desire and hustle. But sometimes the operations of a smaller agency outweighs the needs of like a huge sort of Fortune 100 company. So I think there's that delicate balance.
00:11:34
Speaker
I've always admired, I think, I will name, can I name agencies here? Absolutely. So David the agency, I've never worked with them, always admired. And the reason why is that, you know, I've gone to Cannes several times and it's really fun to see the mix of agencies and sort of the shellmanship of the different types. To me, them having the client Burger King and seeing all the Burger King
00:11:55
Speaker
culture is that guy's moments of just being brave enough as a legacy brand to do bold things like to bring a king to life and he's doing crazy shit or to create an ad where in the ad in the script says, hey Google, which means if you're watching it on TV, it activates your home speaker, your smart home speaker.
00:12:15
Speaker
Like they're just very brave or like the burnt whopper, like they sold burnt whoppers or something. Like, so I just, I just sort of admire their ability to have a large client like that. I think a lot of it has to do with our CMO also was also very daring. And it was sort of a dream relationship of like a large brand, a CMO that was willing to take risks. And then a, I would say smaller size agency sort of, it's like the best mixture of
00:12:42
Speaker
I guess marketing and storytelling. And so that's why I sort of admire them. I'm glad that you like boutique agencies and because that's primarily who listens to the show and who I'm always trying to help is how you kind of move from being a boutique agency, working with smaller clients to working with larger clients and still maintaining that when an agency is listening to you and they're thinking about, okay, I want, they're going to hear this episode and they're thinking, I want to
00:13:05
Speaker
I want to do some outreach or whatever what kind of things can agency who thinks that they actually have something to offer you that maybe they have a point of view around turning a legacy brand into something new and modern or anything like that what do they say and where do they say it to get your attention.
Advice for Agency Outreach and Creativity
00:13:21
Speaker
I've been thinking about this a lot, primarily because I don't think I have one. Like if you ask me like who would you hire tomorrow? I don't have the answer. What I will tell you is I get a lot of inbound emails from external folks trying to sort of pitch their production agency or pitch this and that. And they're all relatively medium to small size agencies. It's too dry for me. Like you're trying to just get it into the inbox. Like I feel like maybe I expect a little bit more on A, creative writing. Like if you are going to email me like
00:13:48
Speaker
don't say like, Hey, I'm the a lot of a lot of the time, a lot of the emails that I get are we're a production agency, we produce X, Y, and Z. They named drop all the look like they do all the must haves to make you sort of take them seriously. But I think it lacks a lot of personality. And I don't know if that's just me because I come from a creative background. But ultimately, you first need to show creativity and then you need to back up your creativity with how it grows the business forward.
00:14:12
Speaker
The inverse to me makes you sound like any other salesperson. You could be selling me like promo cups. So I have not seen, so I would encourage maybe boutique agencies if you are going through that maybe utilitarian approach. I don't even, A, I don't know how to get on these. I don't know how I got on these emails, but I do get them in flux and it does stop me because I do look at my email and it's a headline and a skim. And if it doesn't do anything interesting for me, then I don't even bother clicking on the link.
00:14:37
Speaker
Let me do a little role playing with you here. If I say, hey, check out my reel, does that resonate? No. That's what I figured. Hey, we've done something. Look at our reel. My experience is that never works either. No. What about if they talk about their people? If they talk about their culture? No. No. What about if they talk about other clients? Maybe. Yeah. I think case studies is probably a good client.
00:15:02
Speaker
examples are case studies that are interesting. And I think that's hard because going back to sort of Burger King, David, the agency and their Epic CMO, like I think it's also hard if you don't have interesting case studies, but you want interesting projects, like how are you going to do that? But I would say like give yourself license to take on a case study on your own sort of creativity. Like if we had Taco, I don't know why I'm on fast food, like I'm on a fast food, maybe I'm hungry.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yes. Like let's say like you want to do something interesting and dynamic, or if we had this account, we would do X, Y, and Z. I would encourage you all to sort of be bold with your case studies and then go forward with that and just sort of market that. That's what I think could be interesting. There's two things that come to mind for me. One is in response to what you just said is I think you're talking about your process. Like, Hey, we uncover truths by X, Y, and Z. This method works great for us. Is that something or am I missing it?
00:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something to that, but I would also layer in like what was interesting about your process. Because I think what's missing is that I, I'll speak for myself, I do this day in, day out. And I'm not trying to brag, but like, you know, marketing strategies, brand strategies, campaign, like funnel storytelling, culture zeitgeist moments, like PR things, PR stunts, like all of that has sort of the same architecture at the end of the day. If we all strip it down from its creative
00:16:20
Speaker
whatever storyline, visual, sound experience. If you strip it all away, it's the same approach. But what makes, I think, a boutique interesting to pay attention to is if you did something interesting with that same parameter we're all working with.
00:16:35
Speaker
I think also it needs to take a step further. And this is one of the things that I tried to coach is that you have to uncover what you perceive to be the struggle or the challenge that the person you're talking to is going through. So for you, I mean, you've actually given a fair amount of information already in the introduction of this podcast where you're talking about, Hey, you know, I'm right now, I'm really thinking a lot about taking something. It's a legacy Brandon, maybe reinventing it or adding new layers to it and building off its credibility in new ways or whatever it might be.
00:17:02
Speaker
If someone has taken the time to really dig into that, like if they want you as a client and they're sincere about it, they'll have taken the time to really think about it. And they don't have to come up with the creative idea that would be almost malpractice to do that without talking to you. But they certainly should be coming up with, have you considered this? You might be missing it. We're particularly good at this particular thing. And I think it would apply really well for what Sirius XM, for instance, is trying to
Desire for Modernization with Tech and AI
00:17:27
Speaker
achieve. Does that resonate? Yeah, I would say so. If I had to build on that, I would say,
00:17:32
Speaker
Okay, here's here's one of the things that is a dream list of mine. We're struggling to find the right agency to partner with. And so this is this is a softball, I guess I would like to modernize our creative processes with the emerging tools such as Adobe Firefly, let's just
00:17:48
Speaker
put it in a bucket of AI, tech assist automation. It will require us to work with an agency to help us ramp up in that direction. Because I can't just do that internally because we still have sort of all the everyday work to keep the lights on. We also have stretch goals in order to like take on a little bit more. Speed to market is a reality of ours. And we have to sort of maintain all the moving parts internally evolve and then take on innovation. Right now I've led, I have all my creative leaders who are directly important to me.
00:18:18
Speaker
They each have to adopt tech assist tools that will demonstrate us modernizing our process. So it could be a tool like my audio team is taking on a AI tool that takes on mixing. So things like a podcast or.
00:18:33
Speaker
Oftentimes we record one liners with artists and sometimes we are in an environment that has a lot of background noise or here I'll try and do it here. Like we have the artists here and they somehow turn their head and then the audio goes crazy. And you know, so this tedious repeatable, it's repeatable low complexity tasks. And not to say that boutique agencies need to do that for us, but I do think they have the luxury to tinker with these tools.
00:19:01
Speaker
to be an offering because I think that's the toughest thing. Now being an internal team now for the last, what, like five years of my career. Yeah. It's really hard to pivot. And I think that is what I don't hear a ton of, of what boutique agencies offer. I think it'd be cool if they did. Have you ever got an email or a message in LinkedIn or anywhere else that absolutely turned your head and you went, I want to work with these people.
Current Agency Outreach Impressions
00:19:25
Speaker
No. And I wish I am the person that wishes
00:19:30
Speaker
that that happens because it makes my life, believe it or not, it makes my life easier. But what makes my life harder is that I don't even know where to go to source the coolest boutique agencies. Google, like if I Google it, no, like I have. Truth be told, I have because there are moments where I'm like, where are these folks? It's not like a Google search will serve up the right things anyway.
00:19:51
Speaker
When you put in a Google search, what are the terms you're looking for? Like what do you put in there for the search? It's really cheesy. It's like coolest boutique agency, 2023, like whatever, you know, like, or I might even do a geographical, like, okay. Cause sometimes I'll get things across the world, which is awesome, but I sometimes need a practical use because of time zones. So I might geographically say New York. Cause if I'm looking for something that time zones specific would be better. Or if my search is really weak.
00:20:19
Speaker
Then I feel like I'll go to a sort of like high creative population places and see if that pulls anything. And then I, then, you know, my first entry point at that point, if there is something interesting is their name, it's like, Oh, something interesting. And then like a two, three bio. And if there is something missing, I'll just skip it. Cause I feel like it's a waste of time. Like if you on your own do not express, if you say you are the dopest agency and you have testing and experimentation embedded into your thing.
00:20:45
Speaker
that I'm not gonna pay attention, because I don't need somebody who's just creative. I need somebody who's both. I feel like I find too, it's either like you're so creative, it's so conceptual and like out there, or you're very utilitarian. And I think what I crave is somebody that somebody or a boutique is my reference, that's in the middle. Like you can be really creative, but you also understand that it needs to work for the business. So help me understand how both can work together.
00:21:14
Speaker
One of the things that I think is underplayed, and I think it's because there's a fear of overstepping boundaries, but it shouldn't
Specialization and Expertise in Agencies
00:21:22
Speaker
be. And that is when an agency is talking to a potential client or when they're actually landing a job to get into the business needs
00:21:30
Speaker
of the client. And I know that seems self-evident. Of course, we have these call to actions and all these kinds of things, but I mean further than that. What do you want to actually have? What value are you trying to get? And then figuring out if they can do creative, that actually gets to the outcome to get people to press something, to buy something, to
00:21:53
Speaker
you know, sign up for something versus the broader time of top of the funnel stuff. But to be able to get down in there asking the client very, very hard questions, because I even see if if a creative brief comes along, it'll there'll be some, you know, goals and outcomes that are there, but they're still relatively high level. And I always think it's it's incumbent upon the agency to go further than that and to ask the questions to kind of get into that real business case into where your
00:22:21
Speaker
fears are and then try to solve for that. Yeah. Cause the truth is like, you know, for agency spend, it's always seen as like a extra spend overall, like in any P and L it doesn't matter if it's, you know, a small team, the entire enterprise, however you want to like slice and dice the finances. Ultimately, agency spend is seen as like, do we need to spend this money? And if we're spending it, we better show the ROI cause it's top dollar, you know, like it's not, you're not going to be going to do anything interesting or compelling enough
00:22:48
Speaker
if it's for a smaller ticket and for one project or a portion of a project. So oftentimes for both the agency and the enterprise to be successful, you really need to make sure it's a meaningful project, therefore it's a meaningful price tag.
ROI and Agency Spend
00:23:03
Speaker
So I tend to sort of want to lean in a different direction, which is not like don't just understand what I need because
00:23:11
Speaker
I think it's paralyzing when, let's just say a smaller agency, I keep saying smaller agency, but medium sized smaller agencies sort of introduces themselves. I understand the innate nature to ask like, oh, what are your needs? Or the opposite, which is like trying to assume my needs. It's actually paralyzing because it's too broad of a question.
00:23:35
Speaker
you're probably asking me at the end of my day, in the middle of my day, and it's sort of a loaded question. Because my experience with that question is like, you're trying to ask me that question so that you know what to sell to me. Which is, in my view, if you just took me outside of it, that's really a marketing faux pas 101. So I would actually flip it differently on like, tell me something interesting.
Capturing Interest with Insights
00:23:59
Speaker
You already know the space I'm in. You're probably reaching out to me because you know that I have influence and that I probably have resources.
00:24:06
Speaker
and probably have agencies that I use. So you know that I have a functioning use for an agency. So I already fit a specific archetype. So I'm not surprised because it's not like, oh, why are you asking this? That's nothing to do with me. Oftentimes, it's probably spot on. You're an agency I would consider, or you have an offering that I would probably use, but there's nothing interesting for me to listen to. Because either you're asking me a question that's polarizing,
00:24:34
Speaker
or your entry is too boring. I don't mean to be too harsh, but I just like, this is real talk.
00:24:40
Speaker
so grateful that you're sharing this so candidly because that's exactly what the goal of this is, right? To demystify all of this, to stop wasting everybody's time, right? To do this in a way that delivers what you need and an agency can charge more as a result of that, right? Like to bring the values up for everybody because we're kind of getting at it. So what question could they ask?
Making Clients Smarter with Trends
00:25:05
Speaker
That is a good question. I've been thinking about this because I felt like that would be a really good gift. I think what it could be is an offering of something additive. So I'll use this as an example. If you're a production agency that does video long form, short form, et cetera, et cetera, you know my archetype
00:25:26
Speaker
Tell me something interesting about the industry as an entry. Like, Hey, nice to meet you. We'd love to like make it softer. Like we'd love to just sort of introduce ourselves. You probably have agencies that you're working with currently. We don't want to know if we actually fit, but just to sort of like introduce ourselves. Here's who we are. We do X, Y, and Z just so I can understand like what kind of agency you are, obviously. And just like, here's an anecdote that might, you might find helpful. Did you know?
00:25:50
Speaker
that in this world that we play in X, Y, and Z, short form videos actually in aggregate perform exponentially higher than long form. Or you might even flip it. Most common sort of like strategies today articulate that short form videos actually outperform long form videos by X present. We like to challenge that and here's why. Like now you have me interested because that's actually matters to me in my day to day.
00:26:15
Speaker
I don't have to think you've already demonstrated that you're really expert in the space. And then now it's a conversation because now I can be like, oh, tell me more. What I heard is make you smarter. Yeah. Make me smarter. If you make me smarter, it adds value. And therefore I want to talk to you and see what you're all about. Totally. Is that right, Summer? Yeah. Or like use trends because I don't have time to be like following trends. I don't have time to be like really at the edge.
00:26:39
Speaker
I mean, I do it for due diligence because I want to be good at my job and also build my career, but I still don't have enough time that I want. So it'd be really nice to have an introduction that's a functioning relationship where your entry point is like even just using the trends to your point. Yes, at the end of the day, it's like make me smarter, but ultimately like use trends that are out there as an entry versus like your litany of
00:27:05
Speaker
brands that you do and how fast you do things and how many you do. This is why I think specialization is important for an agency,
Niche Specialization Benefits
00:27:12
Speaker
not to be a one-stop shop or, you know, an all things kind of agency, but to have a niche because then when you have your niche, you're an expert in that niche. You can do it better than anyone else and you know more about it so that when you do talk to a client like you, you can say things like,
00:27:28
Speaker
Hey, we do it this way because it performs better. Most people are doing it that way. We are doing it this way. We know that. First, I worked with another company a while ago. We used to say emotion outperforms facts. That's what we introduce ourselves that we're like straight up emotion outperforms facts. That's why we only talk with, you know, that's what our stuff leans into emotion because we know emotion gets people to do things, not numbers, not facts, not data.
00:27:51
Speaker
So if you want to talk about making difference, then let's talk about emotion. That's where we're experts and give us a call. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that was a, and it truly was, I mean, a master, uh, emotional kind of manipulators and leaned into that and use that as the asset. So there you go. Yeah. I haven't seen anything like that. I could tell you at least on average every day I skim through on average three
00:28:14
Speaker
On a week, I could see 15 intros, whether it's on LinkedIn or on my CIRS-XM account. Sometimes my person, I don't know how that happens, but yeah, it's all over. I actually am a person who welcomes it because it's part of my practice. I want to stay on top of maybe all these folks need to come together and have some sort of portfolio of agencies. Is there even a place like that? Because that would be a dream place for me.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, maybe, maybe it can be fun. It's like matchmaking agency to like what your need is and what your profile. I don't know, but yeah, I get it. You know, I get marketing dollars or.
00:28:53
Speaker
tiny, you know, for smaller businesses. So it's hard to sort of make a big footprint. But yeah, hopefully that's helpful stuff that I've shared so far. It is, it is.
Skepticism on Small Agency Advertising
00:29:03
Speaker
One last question in terms of trying to get attention. This is something that I'm still kind of grappling with. I'm still kind of looking for the data to see what works or not. But from a buyer point of view, do you think paid advertising from an agency
00:29:17
Speaker
So an agency, creative agency of whatever, film production, ad agency, whatever. If they're doing paid advertising, targeting you, right? They find you, they know what platform you're on, they see you're active on it, you become a profile and they start pushing ads your way. Is that seen as good? Good. You know, you got in front of me, I happen to be looking for something and you just put a project in front of me or does that resonate
00:29:41
Speaker
wrong? Does it hit wrong? Or does it seem wasteful? Does it seem smart? What's your impression of paid advertising from an agency? I mean, I have two answers. One would be I'm likely to be annoyed by it because it's I'm probably in my leisurely scrolling time. But if it's compelling, then I may appreciate it. So that's why I'm not trying to give a non answer. But it's like if it's a utilitarian paid at hard pass, if you've demonstrated how
00:30:11
Speaker
dope of an ad you can make, then I might be like, OK, cool. Is that humor? Is that whiz-bang design? Is that mysterious? Is that what kind of stuff would resonate with you? Well, assuming that I'm in a sort of escapism.
00:30:27
Speaker
state of mind, then I think humor for sure. And then I think surrealism of some fashion. I think those are the two categories. I think if you, well, I'll speak for myself, but I probably, I use this in my own practice too, which is like in great storytelling in the sea of
00:30:43
Speaker
Lots of noise. Like how do you break through the noise in a compelling way? Not because you're trying to be the loudest in the room or the most provocative like, you know, sex sells. That's why. But I don't think it's sexy how it's going to pull my attention, but humor because I'm in sort of an escapism. So you entertain me, but also you've introduced yourself by entertaining.
00:31:00
Speaker
And then the other option is probably like some surrealism, like take me away from, I'm clearly in an escapism mindset, but if you can do that in an intellectual and beautifully visual way, I think that's a good, that's sort of a good entry point.
00:31:14
Speaker
I don't know the value of it yet. I'm kind of going through my own process of determining it and doing a little research on whether it's a good idea. Well, can I, can I tell you my fundamental sort of like my, I don't know if this is like smart, but this is my personal take.
Importance of Diversity in Agency Selection
00:31:30
Speaker
If I was a small business today and knowing what I know about paid media, I wouldn't do it because it's too noisy. I think you need large budgets for paid media to work in your favor. And that could either be seen as wasteful or doesn't,
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, if you're not spending half a million dollars or even $250,000 on paid, I personally, in my own experience, produce artifacts for paid media and I study at nauseam funnels with paid media. Science doesn't bear in your favor if you're going to do it for $300 a month.
00:32:04
Speaker
it just isn't gonna. I think they'll sell you on why it's gonna be because you're gonna get, again, targeted ads, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I wouldn't recommend it. Oh, I'm glad you shared that. What about the role of diversity and inclusion? How does that factor in your decision making for what agency to go with or not? Well, personally, it is a huge factor. I think what I have experienced in having a hard time with it is that there aren't many options out there.
00:32:31
Speaker
And especially going back to sort of the beginning where it's like there are large agencies, global agencies, agencies have been around for like 20 plus years, et cetera, et cetera. And then boutique agencies, I think oftentimes, you know, you still, I feel like in general, just to be straight up, like first round refusal goes to those larger agencies. And of course the question always comes up, like what's your diversity? Especially if you like, you throw up this team slide and visibly it almost seems like
00:33:00
Speaker
there is a lack of diversity. And then you get a follow-up sign and then all of a sudden visibly, there's a diverse team. Then you sort of play this weird game and I think that's part of like, is it good or is it bad? I think it's both. Like it's good that we're sort of asking that tough questions and the pressure is on to sort of deliver. It's bad because sometimes it's performative and or we're casting because of visible nature versus skill, you know?
00:33:28
Speaker
I think it's a delicate thing for sure, as we all probably experience. But for me personally, it's definitely a must-have. You will gain way more points if I don't have to ask the question. Right, if you can just demonstrate it. Yeah. I would say demonstrating without telling will go way longer. What does that look like in your mind?
00:33:51
Speaker
It will look like in your portfolio of projects, there's a clear attention to representation in content type, meaning like you have done something with a cultural moment.
00:34:05
Speaker
If you are doing, let's say a casted, I don't know, ad with production and actors, then there's a mix of casting. If I engage with your agency and I've met the fifth person and there seems to be a pattern of lack of diversity, I'll take note of that. Vernacular, the way you talk about it, it comes across super obvious. Like when you are tap dancing around diversity or trying to check the box versus like authentically talking about it.
00:34:35
Speaker
If someone, an agency's landed a job and they're working with you and they're trying to keep the, they're trying to grow the relationship, right? They've got it, they've gotten in, things are landing. How do you like an agency to grow with you? Is it okay for them to ask for more work? Is it okay to try to get into your business to see what else is cooking down the pipeline? Ask for referrals from other people within the company, things like that. Is all of that acceptable?
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would say in general, it's acceptable. Personally, if I get straight up asked the question, I think it's poor taste. Your work should actually be more of your calling card for continuing the relationship. I think if you had to ask, you probably sense that you might not be getting a project and that should probably already tell you something. Yeah, that's what I would say.
00:35:23
Speaker
The role of account management is a interesting one because a lot of agencies don't have it. And a lot of agencies even talk about it as a feature and not a bug. They say, we don't have account managers. You work directly with the creatives and you work directly with the team as though it's a feature. And I think sometimes that's right. Actually, I think that is oftentimes a good thing, but it also can be cumbersome. Uh, sometimes you don't know who to talk to when you want to get something done. If there's a problem, it's a little confusing.
00:35:53
Speaker
But also for the agency side, you don't have a person that's working to get to know the client to think about how to grow with them to expand the account. So there's that side of it. And I think that there's such an opportunity for an account manager to be able to be in there, to be someone who can talk to you, who is doing the research, who's listening
00:36:15
Speaker
intently and really thinking about what you're struggling with. Do you recommend that? Do you recommend that a boutique agency in particular who's on the fence maybe of having an account manager or not invest in that role? I have an interesting take on this. I don't know if that's because I personally have owned a small boutique agency in the past. I'm a creative, I've been
00:36:34
Speaker
also a creative an ECT at a larger agency. And then I'm also internal now so I also work with agencies. I think it has less to do with the archetype of how agencies operate sort of like the business one on one of age like we have an account team and we have the creative team and we assemble them based on you know, is this a business opportunity or we're maintaining the relationship and who do we send based on like
00:36:59
Speaker
what the situation is. So I feel like I've been in and around this ecosystem for a while, that when you ask the question, my first thought really is, it's not really a matter of, should I skip the account person, go straight to the creative team, which I love that articulation of like, it's a feature, not a bug. Or, you know, do we really need an account team to maintain and manage the relationship of the account as
00:37:25
Speaker
obviously the role is described as. I think
Multidisciplinary Approaches in Creative Teams
00:37:28
Speaker
it's different. We're actually missing something. I actually
00:37:31
Speaker
I think it's an approach. So let me talk about my creative team and my philosophy and approach there, which I think applies here. And I haven't talked about this, so forgive me if I ramble for a second. So my approach to my creative team is founded in a multidisciplinary approach. And I know that sounds very buzzwordy, but really at the genesis of it, there's no one point to this pencil. Actually, we all hold points to the pencil and we sort of draw and move together.
00:37:59
Speaker
So I'll, I'll demonstrate an example of that. Let's say there's a project on my team and you know, historically you would have an intake of a project. You would have a project manager, project manager, then takes it to the creative director. Creative director assigns it to somebody and then either it's a one, an ACD or a collection of folks. Actually with my team, we transform that quite a bit. So we have an intake. There's a review process.
00:38:26
Speaker
it does still follow sort of the same rubric of like assignment and et cetera. But when the project actually activates, everyone is present. So we don't, I'll give an acute example. So let's say we're making a, I don't know, an ad for, a paid ad for Superrule. And it has video components, sound component, graphics, copy, et cetera. Well, it doesn't start with a creative direction and creative ID and then delegates to all of those. No, the sound lead is there, the video lead is there, the motion graphic, like,
00:38:55
Speaker
all the different craft is represented from the jump. So sure, a creative director may sort of like spark the idea, but it's a build from a creative writer who's like, ooh, that idea seems cool. Like what if, what if, what about this headline insert headline here? And I was about to blurt out our super bowl. And then, you know, before you know it, it carries on and the visual person is like, oh, what about this? And, and so it's a co-creation at the same
00:39:25
Speaker
time. And the strategy is what holds the team together. So let's say, I make this up, but I don't know, the audio person ends up going in a crazy direction of like, what about this audio idea? The whole team gets sort of pulled back and
00:39:43
Speaker
sort of anchors himself on the brief on like, if the brief is, oh my God, I'm trying hard not to refer to my actual projects that I can't talk about. I'd say the brief is about, oh, I can't think of something random. Okay, let's say the brief is about, I'm making something like phony here, but it's actually could be a cool fun project. I'd say we're making a brief that is about a sound experience to help
00:40:05
Speaker
calm all babies when they're like in a meltdown. And our sound person goes crazy into this like crazy idea that actually isn't grounded in strategy. The whole team creatively can sort of pull back into this like, I love your idea of really turning BPM into a calming environment because some kids are frenetic and maybe we honor their frenetic nature. But really, the brief is asking us to calm them in a meltdown. And a meltdown is an emotional like,
00:40:33
Speaker
Now I'm going into like my own imagination here. But I think that sort of conduit of the strategy and then followed up by the KPI, like can we really deliver on the KPI collectively as a team? And so I'm using that as an example of I would actually offer up to boutique agencies, like don't offer yourself as I am the account person who will
00:40:55
Speaker
make you feel good every time you talk to me because I'm here to build a relationship because it's very opaque. I know we all don't think so, but it's so opaque. When you're talking to the account person, it's very opaque. When you're talking to the creative person, it's very opaque. It's a clear role, so actually beat
00:41:13
Speaker
your clients to it by offering as like you are a unit as a collective offering and it's your methodology and output versus like you're a most amazing account person gets the biggest account because they're amazing by shimmering their shoulders. And I'm not diminishing the role. Please don't take that as that. But I'm just saying it's very obvious and I think it's time to sort of reinvent that approach.
00:41:38
Speaker
I love that. I love that you ended that with the methodology approach, you know, and that as a company with a point of view around it, I think that's strong. I think that's in fact, I think that's one of the best ways that we could leave the show. Also, with you demonstrating your improv skills there by coming up with some scenarios on the fly. That was very impressive. Your instructors would be very proud. I know, I know. I will. I will let them know.
00:42:07
Speaker
And Balan Alo, thank you so much for being on the show and for sharing all your wisdom with us. I appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me. It was super fun. We'll have you back here soon. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for listening to Crossing the Axis with James Keblis. If you're interested in joining the conversation or have a topic you'd like covered, please drop a note at keblis.com. That's K-E-B-L-A-S dot com.
00:42:49
Speaker
you